Learning by Grace/K-12 FREE HOMESCHOOL

Unauthorized Charges

My son was enrolled in K-12 Free Homeschooling for the 2009-2010 school year. After being billed for the shipping of my "free curriculum", I fought for months to actually get it. The material was not at all as described but we finished out the year. I returned the discs the last week of May. On 12-21-10, Learning by Grace charged my debit card a total of $200 in four seperate transactions. Of couse, you can't actually speak to someone so I began a live chat. They are always rude and she told me that I was being charged for unreturned discs. I explained that I returned them and she went on to say they had a room full of discs that could not be linked to the student they were being returned by. She said it would be a week before someone in "that" department could get back to me. I never gave them permission to bill my credit card. Their website will not allow you to remove the card you used to pay for the shipping but I did not have "enable auto pay" checked. When I returned the discs I "chatted" with a representative about remocing my credit card. She informed me that since the school year was not actually over, I had to keep the info on file but she ensured that not only would the information be invalid if my child were not enrolled for the next year, she also ensured me that my card could not be billed if "auto pay" were not enabled. Now, I am out $200 and disputing the charges with my bank.

Comments

I started using them at the beginning of 2010 for my daughter. We are no longer using them as I refuse to go back.
The offered free homeschooling. But charged for the shipping. Ok no big deal. I paid $20 for the shipping. When we got the CD's all of them were not there and we got 2 programs double disks. I sent an e-mail to the address on their website about this. It came back to me undeliverable. So I tried to get to the live chat and it was not working. I waited until the new school year started and was able to get to live chat. The lady told me that she had no records of me not getting all of the disks. I copy and pasted the mail that I sent her from my mailbox. I keep all that stuff. She said that she had no record of that mail. Of course not it came back to be undeliverable. She than informed me that if I did not return the disks I will be charged for them. Um I sent them back at the end of the last school year. They have no record.
At the end of it my account is locked and I can not log in. I do not know if they tried to charge my account as I bought a prepaid credit card to pay for the disks in the first place.

I have said this before and live by it. I use only 2 ways to purchase anything online. 1 is Paypal and if they do not offer that way to pay. And I really must have the item and the only way to get it is online, I will go get a prepaid credit card. I have used Paypal for years. Any time I have had an issue they are fast to respond. And for the most part if a company accepts them they will honor their sale. And you can back out at any time before you hit that confirm button. If not with a prepaid credit card there are never any double charges or surprise charges. The only real downside to a prepaid credit card is that they are harder to get a refund if something goes wrong. So I usually limit the amount to $50. I am not rich but it is worth more to me to know that even if I have an issue they do not have my bank information. Getting them to refund your bank account can and most of the time is worse than pulling wisdom teeth.